New York Traffic Congestion Second Worst In Nation

It might not come as a surprise to anyone who's ever been stuck in the Lincoln Tunnel on a late Friday afternoon, but a new report from the Texas Transportation Institute shows New York drivers lost a staggering 380 million hours stuck in rush hour traffic in 2007, the second-highest rate in the nation. (Just think about the waste—that's enough time to build 11 full-size Great Pyramids or watch almost every episode of Law & Order!) No matter how bad that sounds, though, at least drivers idling on the Cross Bronx Expressway can be thankful they're not in Los Angeles. As Newsday reports, the TTI found the City of Angels had the nation's worst traffic congestion, costing its motorists more than 485 million hours and $10 billion in travel time and extra fuel. The other piece of good news from the report is that, while New York drivers themselves may not be improving, the traffic is. City congestion has fallen for two years now from its peak in 2005, a trend Kate Slevin of the Tri-State Transportation Campaign chalks up to a strong public transit system: "People want to be on transit. They like having options and transportation choices, and that's reflected in these numbers."